THE Cebu City government has decided to put up its own radio program to help public elementary school students with their studies.
Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella said their city schools division and the Local School Board (LSB) coordinated in putting up a daily eight-hour radio program Monday through Saturday on one of the city’s local FM stations as a way to address radio-based learning in the city.
The radio program, called “Education Laboratory” (EdLab), will start airing lessons for Grades 1-6 pupils on Jan. 4, 2021 on local FM station Home Radio.
Raddy Diola, LSB chairman, said they have appointed 48 teacher-broadcasters who will handle the program.
Labella said they wanted to implement it in December, but they were informed by school officials that the first grading period will end on Dec. 12 to give students a needed Christmas break.
Labella said he sees radio as an effective medium in communicating the lessons of the city’s public school students as it has a wide reach and doesn’t need the use of the Internet to operate.
He said with the Covid-19 pandemic still present, face-to-face classes in the city will still be impossible.
“This project will go on for as long as it is needed as a complementary teaching method in modular learning that our education system has implemented this year,” Labella added.
The City is close to spending around P10 million to support public schools in promoting modular and distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Separately, Salustiano Jimenez, Department of Education Central Visayas director, said the move of the Cebu City government is a welcome development as the Department is now looking to offer various modes of distance learning.
He said: “We are (going) in that direction so that it would be fun for the students too. Radio-based instruction (RBI) is one of those platforms that we are eyeing aside from TV-based instruction.
There are students who understand better through audio, others through visual and print. That is why we have to give them all the options and opportunities.”
Aside from being costly, modular-printed distance learning also poses negative impacts to the environment, considering the number of trees that have to be cut to produce paper, Salustiano said.
He said the region is still checking how many schools in Central Visayas have adopted RBI. In Cebu Province, schools in Bantayan, Camotes Island and Talisay City have adopted RBI.
As for face-to-face learning, Jimenez emphasized that no schools have adopted it yet as they have not received any document or communication from the central office concerning their proposed limited face-to-face classes. (PAC, WBS)